February 17, 2010

Because, apparently, then anything that happens can be evidence of the thing you need to be true so you can have the policy changes you wanted anyway, but for reasons people wouldn't support because they weren't scary enough. And "weirding" sounds scary.

Friedman is quite absurd. He begins his column by mocking people who are saying "because Washington is having a particularly snowy winter it proves that climate change is a hoax and, therefore, we need not bother with all this girly-man stuff like renewable energy, solar panels and carbon taxes."

But then he turns around and says "The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington — while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought — is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever."

So weather is not climate — which, duh — but he still wants to use weather as climate. And he even gets to say that cold is evidence of heat, because we shouldn't be saying heat anymore, we should be talking about weirdness.

Come on, that's really weird.

***

I see the analogy between global warming and the weapons of mass destruction used to justify the Iraq war. Those who planned the war believed there were other good reasons to go to war with Iraq, but they made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction as the reason to go to war, because they thought people could understand this reason and unite behind the war effort. But then, when the WMD were not found, the war looked like a big mistake.

Now, think about the analogy. Think about how people support the policies that are supposed to deal with global warming — renewable energy, solar panels, carbon taxes, etc. — and what other reasons they have for wanting those policies. Think about why they would decide to rely on the global warming prediction rather than those other reasons, and how they will need to scramble if the global warming theory proves untrue or is no longer believed.

If global warming were the only reason for doing the things that are needed to deal with global warming, then no scrambling is required. We can simply be happy about it. But the scrambling... that's what shows that people wanted the policies anyway. And maybe they are right! Maybe going to war in Iraq was right even without WMD.

So why not stress the other arguments for renewable energy, solar panels, carbon taxes, etc.? Because it's not scary enough! Running low on traditional fossil fuel — the old energy crisis — just isn't crazy-making enough to get the public to accept great sacrifice and pain.

One cannot discount, indeed must include, the possibility if not the probability the reasons have a lot more to do with proponents maximizing political power to expand control of a vanishingly free people. That corporations have jumped aboard the band wagon indicates the far too attractive rewards of rent seeking resulting from this unholy alliance of environmentalists and corporatists.

Thomas Friedman is one of the main reasons that sensible policies regarding renewable energies haven't been implemented.

He's such an asshole, he makes people want to burn shit. Every time he writes a column, I litter just a little bit just so he doesn't get his way.

Really, these people don't understand how their tactics undermine their sometimes laudable goals.

We're able to see them for what they are, which is shameless hucksters pushing "control" policies. It's not enough that we be asked to turn our thermostats down ... they want control of the dial. Thomas Friedman doesn't give two shits about Planet Earth ... he wants socialism. He's just transparently using global warming as a means to his end.

If the Earth is destroyed by climate (hah!), it will be because of people like Thomas Friedman who were so piss-poorly ineffective at convincing people of the general correctness of their ideals.

.. Therefore, climate experts can’t leave themselves vulnerable by citing non-peer-reviewed research or failing to respond to legitimate questions, some of which happened with both the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The 'weirding' I find is how Friedman is opining on a story his own paper of record the NYT has not deem fit to cover.

Not much unlike when Woodward comes out with his books about the administration months and in some cases years after the events.. events supposedly covered by his own paper.

Except that the folks who went to war with Iraq did *not* use WMD as the sole reason. The press said they did, but the press was wrong.

In fact, I don't even remember specific claims about the existence of WMD being used as a justification at all. I remember claims about Iraq's long-term noncompliance with inspectors. I remember claims about Iraq's seeking material that would be useful for making nuclear weapons. I remember claims about frequent continuing violations of the no-fly zones. And I remember that all of those claims were unquestionably true. But I do not remember specific claims about the existence of WMD, except in the media.

So weather is not climate — which, duh — but he still wants to use weather as climate. And he even gets to say that cold is evidence of heat, because we shouldn't be saying heat anymore, we should be talking about weirdness.

I had this exact conversation with my cousin-in-law the other day. I’m so tired of the “this one day when it’s hot was evidence of global warming, but these three days when it was cold were just weather or alternately more evidence of global warming because they are CRAZY”. I think there is a lot of confirmation bias going on there.

As for the “weirdness” theory, in the book I read about the little ice age, it mentioned that crazy weather was a factor, so there may be something to the crazy weather is associated with climate change theory. However, DC having a blizzard happens like clockwork about every 5-6 years, for the last 15 years or so at least which is as long as I’ve been paying attention, so I don’t really find that all that odd.

The reality is that if there is global warming, no one is going to do anything about it across the globe. So it is largely a waste of time to discuss. However, people who claim that a blizzard in Washington (where I grew up and lived through the blizzard of 66) is evidence that there is no global warming are no better than the scientists that overstated the impacts of global warming. A blizzard neither proves nor disproves globabl warming.

In any event, putting toxins in the air from cars, which were not here when the world was created, is probably not good for the atmosphere. It is not a natural ocurrence. No one can properly model what impact this has, and so you can't rule out that this is a very bad thing.

While Goodthinkers everywhere appprovingly quote the "Military-Industrial Complex" part of Eisenhower's Farewell Address, no one ever remembers the next part:

"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

"If Prez Obama were flexible and smart, he'd pivot on this issue, declare victory, check that box on his to-do list marked "Fix AGW" and move on to another issue. "

Unfortunately pols tend to apply solutions to issues and it is generally impossible to determine if the pol's solution worked [i.e Head Start, War on Drugs, Global Warming, Poverty, Hunger, Obesity,etc].

Thomas Friedman is one of those people who is so rigidly certain that he knows more than everyone else that he really doesn't register how often what he says is laughably absurd. With his stern little scowl and his too-full mustache, he appears comic rather than masterful.

This was always part of the problem with the mainstream media model of journalism, now receding. Their past dominance of the media landscape made them powerful by virtue of the absence of rebuttal and therefore made them appear to be smart (just because they were the biggest voices in town). The NYTimes, for example, for years had a policy of not printing letters that directly disputed their columnists.

But now, with so many other sources of information out there, the pomposities ofthe columnists, editorial writers, and MSM journalists just appear inane like Dowd or pretentious like Friedman. They don't seem smart at all. They keep losing control of the conversation and the narrative, as with Climategate, and they really don't know what to do or what has changed. They just seem silly and self-important.

Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes..The resulting explosion of mosquito-borne malaria in Africa has claimed over sixty million lives.

Well, yeah. "Global warming" is far too objective a term. It invites all kinds of, er, inconvenient comparisons and analysis that might not pan out and fit the desired narrative.

"Global weirding" on the other hand, is suitably objective and nebulous. Anything can be termed weird, depending on your point of view. And a world-wide climate system can be reliably counted on to produce all kinds of "weird" events on a regular basis. And those events can then be used to bolster the theory of man-made global weirding.

So please adjust your terminology, along with your ridiculous expectations of scientifically varifiable (dare I include peer reviewed) data before taking economy-wrecking action. Let's just hide the decline, embrace the weird and learn to love the lower living standards. OK?

All the coal under our feet, all the oil shale, all the natural resources locked up under government owned land, all the off shore oil: Friedman and his ilk, by insuring that we cannot get at these sources of cheap energy INSURE that our future, at best, will be one of slow growth. What they have done is beyond criminal.

Thank you. I'm so sick of the sanctimonious motherfuckers lecturing me that "weather isn't climate." Really? Amazing. I said the same fucking shit when they were claiming that California wildfires are due to lack of rain from global warming. Or that a really hot summer day is proof of global warming. Or that Katrina is proof of global warming. Yesterday I was talking to a lady in a community garden and she was saying that she was growing a melon that she didn't think would grow, but it's thriving "due to global warming." I wanted to beat her with a trowel. Really, an average temp change of one degree centigrade in the past 20 years made your melon plant viable?

All this proves is the age old truth that people believe what they want to believe and then make the evidence fit.

My friends and I were predicting they would start saying “Climate Chaos” as a way to accomplish what Friedman is attempting with “global weirding”. Heh heh No matter what happens they will claim it supports their position. Their failure to predict climate we be held up as proof of their theory.

Remember all those news stories about how global warming was gonna hurt the ski industry and water supplies of towns that rely on snow pack melt? They have been running those stories for years, but now, after very heavy snows across North America, we get the same crowd claiming we should expect increased snow with global warming. Climate Chaos!!!!!! CHAAAAOOOOSSS!!!!! Heh heh

So why not make stress the other arguments for renewable energy, solar panels, carbon taxes, etc.? Because it's not scary enough!

Not only is it not scary enough. It is also the case that the real reasons for pursuing these Green controls are so abhorrently repellent to much of the population.

What do the Climatists want?

Well, what they want is based on how they see the Earth:

And they see the Earth and humanity and everything as existing in circular time. There is no "progress"; there is just continued fall from the Garden of Eden, or, if you prefer, continued distance from the Rousseauian ideal of natural living. Psychologically, this is a result of the Climatists disliking themselves and disliking other people, and projecting those feelings of dislike into a dislike and distrust of humanity as a whole.

In the Climatists view, the human race must not impact the Earth except in a minimal way. We terrible horrible people are guests of the Earth, in their worldview, and changing the Earth or engineering it is viscerally offensive to them. The concept of linear time – with its progress to a better tomorrow – is wrong to them, probably because they are scared, deep down, when they look at where humanity might be leading.

You can't argue about worldview with the Climatists. It is a religious feeling for them.

It is because of this perspective that the Climatists detest any "engineering" solution to global warming just as much as they detest engineering the Earth by mining, oil removal, etc...

The Green People will not be satisfied until we have disclaimed our human future and adopted their quasi-religious worldview.

My complaint about Global Warming is that it crowds out other sensible ideas by assimilating them. Cleaner air, for example, or cleaner water: What person wouldn't get behind that goal? And yet policy makers have merged that goal with others by folding anti-pollution initiatives into the anti-Global Warming tent. I guess so people afraid of Global Warming will support clean air too -- as if they wouldn't. So I'm content to see the allure of AGW-pushing fade.

Re: Mosquitoes and DDT. Last week there was a video making the rounds of someone using lasers to kill mosquitoes dead. Link. How cool is that!!

I agree that environmentalists have fixed on global warming as a reason to do things that they think should be done anyway. I also think that it's clear, in light of the IPCC scandal, that many people in the pro-AGW camp exaggerate and carelessly rely on faulty figures to make the problem sound worse than it otherwise does.

Also, I'm just as annoyed as anyone at the liberals who walk around promoting the pro-AGW hypothesis without knowing the first thing about the underlying science.

But cooler heads need to prevail. Whether or not anthropogenic global warming is in fact occuring is a separate issue from whether or not certain people in the pro-AGW camp are acting in bad faith. And it's important to remember that global warming is a scientific issue, not a political one. Unlike, say, the morality of abortion, there is an objective truth about AGW.

As a Republican, I'd been a global warming skeptic for quite some time. But I came upon a pro-AGW series of videos that explained the science simply and in an even-handed way. I found them fairly convincing.

Here's a link to the first part (it currently has 8 parts, all of which are worth watching; part 7 discusses the East Anglia e-mails and demonstrates that they're really not a big deal):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo

Or, if you're like me and you don't like clicking on links from strangers, just go to YouTube and type in "potholer54 climate change;" the above video will be the first video on the search results list.

Yesterday I was talking to a lady in a community garden and she was saying that she was growing a melon that she didn't think would grow, but it's thriving "due to global warming." I wanted to beat her with a trowel.

In defense of the GW crowd, they have said that one of the effects of GW would be not just an increase in average temperature, but an increase in the variance in weather. So we might see average temps go up a degree, accompanied by higher highs and lower lows. There could be increases in rain/snowfall as more water gets pumped into the air by increase in temperature. Weather is a non-linear coupled system that can have extreme state changes from small input changes.

That said, whether the last few centuries of warming are man-made or natural is to me, unknown.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."--Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."--Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."Letter to President Clinton, signed by:-- Democratic Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."-Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."-- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."-- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."-- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

Who cares? Florida used to be above sea level 10,000 years ago. Things change. PERIOD.

C02 is not a pollutant. It is a normal gas respirated by plants. Plant's thrive in a higher C02 environment and since we get a lot of our food from plants, why is this a disaster of epic proportions.

Actually, we are having a rather warmer and wetter winter than ususal and the snow pack is way over normal. This is a good thing. About every 8 to 12 years we get this type of weather. Weather AND climate are cyclical and has nothing to do with man.

That being said: we should try to eliminate 'actual pollution' and gradually (gradually people) move to other sources of energy that are not polluting without destroying our economy.

I lived in LA in the 50's for a while, as a small child, and the smog was horrible!! You couldn't even see the tops of the telephone poles for the pollution. On a clear day, when the Santa Anna winds would blow the smog out to sea, we were surprised to see actual mountains surrounding the basin.

The problem with encouraging green energy, however, is that it does not accomplish what liberals really want which is government control of energy. Creating a crisis - global warming - begs for government control, which is why liberals love the global warming theory.

Conservatives support green energy - if it is cost effective and if it gets us off of importing oil and preparing for the future. What conservatives do not support is government control of energy so that it can be "redstributed equally" which is, again, what the liberals really want.

So why not compromise. Lets build more nuclear plants for electrical usage. We could even compromise on more wasteful energy - wind in return for more domestic drilling.

As Ms. Althouse says, there are good reasons to use less fossil fuels, emit less pollution, etc.

But the solutions are hard. Very hard. The technology isn't there yet. There is only so much that can be gained by optimizing current technology. The implementations are complex, and if actual performance was measured would be profoundly disappointing.

Mr. Friedman and most of the people who are in the policy arena don't know enough to even venture a solution.

That is why this whole movement is failing. There was a school built locally that had LEED certification. Cost probably 2X per sq ft to build than otherwise. Great promise, all the buzz words; geothermal, etc.

The energy consumption is in the middle of the school district building stock.

...not just an increase in average temperature, but an increase in the variance in weather

And that is measured how?

In any statistically random (or near random) sample, there will be variance. Part of that variance is outliers. Part of that variance is clusters. If the data didn't have outliers and clusters, it wouldn't be random.

Today Friedman decides that outliers support global warming.

Clusters are so yesterday.

* * *

Madison Man -- I agree with you. Once of the saddest outcomes of the Global Warming fiasco is that it gives national politicians license to ignore local problems -- like deforestation -- by claiming the victimhood of global causes.

Friedman is an idiot, always has been. Why anyone took him seriously after his "Golden Arches" theory of conflict (which merely showed that he read--and misunderstood--Sam Huntington) is beyond me. He is a buffoon.

Most of the people citing the blizzard as proof that there's no global warming are just using it to get revenge and don't actually believe it means anything. That weather is not climate is widely understood.

But the opportunity to annoy the hell out of the people who have spent the past decade attributing every single weather related occurrence to global warming is too good to pass up.

Saul, I too lived through the Blizzard of 1966 in Washington. People trapped in their cars froze to death. We watched a plow literally beat itself to pieces and break down as it tried to get through the ginormous drifts in front of our house; I have a picture of my father standing on one of those drifts, with his head higher than the top of a telephone pole beside him. We had no school for over a week. For longer than that, we had to get to our house by driving through a field rather than down our drifted-over driveway.

Then, a couple of years later, we moved to downstate New York and went through a nearly identical record-setting blizzard, complete with schools closed for a week (though I don't think anybody froze to death -- people in NY tend to know a little more about how to drive in snow.) We have had weird weather forever, not to mention climate changes.

As for running out of fossil fuel, Exxon announced today that it has discovered more oil than it has used in each of the last 15 years and has its largest-ever reserves right now. But it doesn't fit the narrative!

That is not what he's saying. Blizzards don't disprove climate change. Scientists never said climate change will be experienced the same everywhere in the world.

Page 240 of the Economic Report of the President begins a discussion of the direct impact of climate change on the United States:

Precipitation already has increased an average of 5 percent over the past 50 years, with increases of up to 25 percent in parts of the Northeast and Midwest and decreases of up to 20 percent in parts of the Southeast. In the future, these trends will likely be amplified. The amount of rain falling in the heaviest downpours has increased an average of 20 percent over the past century, a trend that is expected to continue. In addition, Atlantic hurricanes and the strongest cold-season storms in the North are likely to become more powerful.

is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts

That is incorrect. Global warming would most affect the north and south parts of the globe, lowering the temperature differential between the polar and equatorial regions and likely leading to less extreme weather. The catastrophic interpretation was just the usual political screaming points for the science impaired, Friedman being a prime example.

One virtue of the present political impasse is that the various nuts are becoming hysterical, revealing the seething silliness that was at the core of their world view and undermining the authority they once possessed.

climate: the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.

"The climate in NA has been friggin' cold for the last few years" is a perfectly valid statement.

Those who planned the war believed there were other good reasons to go to war with Iraq, but they made a decision to use weapons of mass destruction as the reason to go to war

If you think the planners used WMD as the reason to go to war, then you really weren't paying attention.

The Democrats were more guilty of that than the Bush Administration was.

Furthermore, a number of WMD were, in fact, found. Hundreds of them.

This meme that no WMD were ever found is a liberal lie.

They weren't brand new weapons, and the compounds had decayed substantially. But the shells were intact, the sarin, while degraded, was still toxic, and the shells were illegal. Saddam was obligated to destroy them all by the terms of the cease fire and the terms of the UNSC resolutions.

Maybe writing weird columns can be used as evidence in support of the AGW hypothesis. I'm sure there's some way of stringing together the logical steps to make that count. And then a decline in readership of Friedman columns could become almost infallible proof of AGW.

Terrible analogy:Regime change was the main reason for Iraq. The threat of WMDs was one of the reasons for needing regime change. While it turned out to be unnecessary to eliminate them, the threat which was quite dangerous in itself was eliminated. The war in Iraq is over and the benefits are obvious and were predicted and stated as important reasons for the invasion. People have forgotten how bad Iraq was before the invasion and ignore how far it has come.

If Cap and Trade and all the other economy destroying ideas were implemented, we would not be seeing the benefits, only the costs. Stopping global warming is not only not needed, it is not possible. There are not benefits to have.

The true analogy would be if the Iraq war was impossible to win, Saddam really never existed and the world's economy was destroyed in the attempt.

Rush just dug up this quote that seems to me to fit very nicely here..

All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

Well Im glad there really was a justification for going to war with iraq. I was starting to think that $7 billion we spent was just pissed away. Granted WMDS was just a lie (or maybe not), but lets not forget that saddam was behind 9/11. Regime change, yeah thats the ticket. A reasonable investment. Now I feel better.

the threat which was quite dangerous in itself was eliminated. The war in Iraq is over and the benefits are obvious and were predicted and stated as important reasons for the invasion.

The even more serious threat of Kim Jong-Il (nuclear weapons; ICBMs) was ignored. The cruelties Kim submitted his people to -- worse than Saddam Hussein's -- were ignored. Bush -- unable to capture Bin Laden -- desperately needed to whack some Muslims as a lesson to others.

Benefits? We'll be paying for the Iraq War for as long as the bailout. Download Stiglitz's book to your Kindle:

Atheism or agnosticism does not necessarily result in rational thought.

G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories explained:"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense." ["The Oracle of the Dog" (1923)]and"You hard-shelled materialists were all balanced on the very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything." ["The Miracle of Moon Crescent" (1924)]

These have resulted in the more common paraphrase:"The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.

Here is Friedman in 2005, advocating a Geo-Green movement to fight against the mullahs in Iran and the lying Saudis. And also, Iraq!This was the year before An Inconvenient Truth was released. Amazing how the two different problems ended up having the exact same solutions.

When we humans burn fossil fuels, we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where the gas traps heat. But much of that carbon dioxide does not stay in the air. Instead, it gets sucked into the oceans. If not for the oceans, climate scientists believe that the planet would be much warmer than it is today. Even with the oceans’ massive uptake of CO2, the past decade was still the warmest since modern record-keeping began. But storing carbon dioxide in the oceans may come at a steep cost: It changes the chemistry of seawater.

Is certainly important, both because of the heat released when it condenses and because it accounts for the small effect of CO2 in the tropics. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, water vapor is far more important, and in the tropics it completely dominates the CO2 contribution.

But as to the actual effects, no one knows. The models are full of fudge factors and aren't very good at predicting circulation patterns. "I don't know" would be an honest response for scientists asked to comment on global warming.

"Which is more important in generating very strong storms: abundant water vapor, or a strong temperature gradient? That's the interesting question."

You can have high humidity without storms, but a strong storm always requires a substantial temperature difference. It is the equalization of that temperature difference that is the storm. The water is just important because holds the energy more and it changes phase suddenly becoming liquid where it does damage.

A sand storm in the desert is an example of a storm without water vapor being significant.

BTW this is another example of how liberals fail to understand complex systems. They're like the primitives who of the Stone Age who tried to explain the lightening by saying there had to be a lightning god. Well now they've got a "Global Weirding God".

You want me to believe their credibility or lack of it doesn't matter, then? No sale.

No, I'm not saying their lack of credibility doesn't matter. That's a straw man. I'm saying that the opinions of the particular individuals who engage in exaggeration or hyperbole should be discounted to the extent that they're based on exaggeration or hyperbole, and I'd add that any statement they make going forward should be viewed with suspicion and be properly sourced.

But you can't discount the science, insofar as it's legitimate, just because some people who accept the science are behaving badly.

To use the Iraq War analogy, if there were proponents of the Iraq War who claimed that Hussein already had nuclear weapons without sufficient evidence, they would have been acting in bad faith. But that wouldn't undermine the legitimate arguments in favor of regime change.

WASHINGTON - A new, partially declassified intelligence report provides no new evidence that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion, as President Bush alleged in making the case for war, U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.

The report, made public in the midst of a partisan debate in Congress, says that about 500 munitions containing degraded chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin nerve agent, have been found in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

But the intelligence officials said the munitions dated from before the 1991 Persian Gulf War and were for the most part badly deteriorated. "They are not in a condition where they could be used as designed," one intelligence official said.

I see the disparity here between left and right on the climate issue and it's driven by the blogosphere and other media not reporting the truth. When you visit left blogs, they act like none of this scandal at East Anglia , and now NASA, has been exposed. They ignore it, just like the scientists ignored the data that didn't fit. The attack the messengers, deny the lies or say most foolishly that it doesn't matter because everything proves GW.

The sides are arguing from two different sets of facts. The left's facts are simply incomplete, and on purpose...again.

The importance of water vapor in the development of strong extratropical storms -- such as the recent snow storms on the east coast -- was demonstrated pretty convincingly in the papers of Chang, Kreitzberg and Perkey back in the early 1980s. If there is any controversy about this particular topic, it's flying way under the radar. This does not deny the presence of strong, dry storms. It only shows that a strong storm will generally be stronger in an environment that is richer in water vapor.

Freidman's "global weirding" is perfect. It's exactly like a stone age religion now.

Stuff is weird = We must sacrifice to the gods.

When do we get to the virgin sacrifices and chicken entrails.

The falsified data didn't even claim that weather was weirder, just warmer. The idea that weather is weirder is not evident in the data, but fortunately for them it does not require data. Simply ask anyone if the weather has been weird lately. There ya go, we need to do something. Well actually, you other people need to do something - I'll be living my normal jet setting, big footprint life. You see, I sell the snake oil - I don't drink it.

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."-- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."-- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

There are many reasons not to worry about CO2. First, Co2 concentrations before the last 30 years or so all come from Antarctic ice cores. There are accurate real measurements going back 150 years that show higher concentrations of C02 last century and earlier in this one.

There is still much evidence that the CO2 increases follow not precede warming with a many year lag. This would explain why the CO2 concentrations are rising and the temperatures are flat.

The C o2 concentration in the past has been many times higher and life on earth continued, evolved, and flourished. There are cycles, and cycles within cycles. The CO2 hasn't killed life on the planet yet.

Lastly, htere is absolutely nothing short of exterminating 6 billion people which can change the atmospheric CO2 concentration appreciably. As far as the bizarre weather...El Nino! The winter weather was accurately forecasted last summer. Nothing to do with climate at all

The worst-case global warming climate simulations result in about a 1 meter (3 foot) sea-level rise by the end of this century — 90 years from now rather than 50. Manhattan Island (exclusive of its buildings) is 81 meters (266 feet) high at its highest point, and thus the island is most unlikely to disappear for many centuries (basically all the world's great ice sheets — Greenland and Antarctica — would have to entirely melt for that to occur).

China's fierce defense of the Kyoto Protocol arises from the fact that that treaty imposed no greenhouse gas reductions on the country. China strenuously objects to U.S. insistence that economically emerging countries be obliged to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases. China is particularly invested in keeping the Kyoto terms alive since it now emits more greenhouse gases annually than the United States.

Is Friedman just making it up as he goes along? Illogical and no basis in fact. Typical liberal.

The point which I am surprised no one has made here, is that if global warming were on trial, there is not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. The lawyer types, our hostess foremost amongst them, think with this as a basis for evaluating the logic of an argument. The legal method and scientific method are really very similar. I know that if global warming were a drug, it would never get approved for use on humans by the FDA based on the studies and inability to do real trials. Only computer projections.

But you can't discount the science, insofar as it's legitimate, just because some people who accept the science are behaving badly.

This is dodging the main issue. That some people who accept "the science" have been behaving badly was known all along. The scandal now is that the set of people who have been behaving badly has been shown to include many of the scientists (for lack of a better word). The people who accept the science aren't the problem; it's the people on whose authority you're calling it "the science" in the first place. No sensible person cares what happens to Al Gore's credibility-- but when it's the IPCC's credibility that's blown, no one has any business carrying on like nothing's wrong.

DADvocate, your post does not address Friedman's claim. China is becoming the renewable energy powerhouse while the USA let's them. They also are developing fossil fuel resources very quickly and polluting the atmosphere more than we are now, with more to go.

These two things are not at all incompatible.

It's tragic and stupid. We innovated many of these renewable energy technologies and are allowing our trade competitors to kick our asses in the clean energy race. Already we sold off our wind power leadership to the Dutch and the Indians.

But the important thing, I guess, is that conservatives opposed liberals and moderates on one of their initiatives. That's all they really care about, apparently.

We have a severe problem with global warming. It is a threat to our way of life. That is why we need to talk about it.

Global warming is obviously a fraud. The question is, cui bono? Clearly it is the elites who want to reserve our dwindling stocks of fossil fuels for themselves. George HW Bush will not be able to run his cigarette boat on leftover French fry oil:

Are you even capable of making a rational argument why you think the increasing concentration of of greenhouse gases is not a problem for our civilization? Do you even know?

I don't think it's incumbent on her (or anyone else needling the climate scientists) to prove an alternative theory. All the current scandals are doing is suggesting: (1) At the least, climate scientists have been lending their authority to hysterical scare campaigns based on propositions which might be true, but have never been rigorously tested (the glacier claims, the African crop claims, etc.). (2) More seriously, the critics allege while climate scientists have proposed a mechanism for minute increases in the concentration of greenhouse gasses to tip the Earth over into significantly hotter temperatures, their current experimental validation of that theory is fatally flawed because of shoddy data collection and shoddy statistics and modelling work. Garbage in, garbage out. That certainly doesn't mean they're wrong -- they could be 100% right. But if these criticisms pan out, it does mean that their absolute certainty, and all the high dudgeon about science being settled, is totally unjustified.

Essentially, as I see it, the current scandals and critiques suggest that we do not know what we thought we knew. That is, we don't actually know what the effect of increased concentrations of greenhouse gasses (or at least CO2) in the atmosphere is. We have hypotheses, but they appear not to have been tested rigorously, so we don't know whether they're right or wrong. And that uncertainty is important for policy makers to take into account, until the science gets done right, with appropriate rigor (and openness).

I think the basic greenhouse effect is settled science -- I think we've observed it on other planets, as well as in the geological record. Whether the effect of an additional 20-30 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is the point at which the atmosphere tips over into a catastrophic enhanced warming cycle -- not settled, and that's the whole focus of the global warming dispute.

I was looking in to controversy about the greenhouse effect and gave up. All the sites I found had the discredited and manufactured hockey stick graph as part of the "proof" of the greenhouse effect.

There is circular reasoning and outright lies like the fraudulent graph throughout the climactic research that I could find.

So I can say that currently climactic science is polluted by error and falsehood, and until those huge problems are addressed, I am agnostic regarding all climactic research. Including the greenhouse effect.

I dont' believe Bush/Chaney were in any position to get these people to say anything.

I agree with Trent Lott and other GOP members of Congress that pumping up the Iraq threat was meant to divert attention from Clinton's penile-induced troubles, because impeaching a President at the very time his leadership was most needed would have been foolhardy.

There is no greenhouse gases where I live. The CO2 level doesn't seem to be a problem either. What I fear is the constant threat we are under with acid rain. Anyone remember when acid rain was going to end the world as we know it?

The Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Maryland, which shares much with NASA next door is teaching their students (my nephew is minoring in Atm Sci. with his aerospace engineering major) that CO2 is an inconsequential greenhouse gas which has virtually no effect on climate. They are big on methane. Stopping CO2 production has no effect on methane.

Your simple question does not specify which greenhouse gas you are referencing. There was more natural methane production by animals in 1850 than there is now. (More buffalo than current number of domesticated animals)

All we can say about AGW is, that as of right now, we don't know, and many if not all the studies supporting it are INVALID.

SURE, AGW COULD be happening, i.e., AGW could be TRUE, but as the studies are flawed and INVALID, we can't know if AGW is true, based on those studies.

It's not hard. Further, AGW to be valid Science must make falsifiable claims that can be tested. Claims that Manhattan will or will not be under X number of feet of water by 2YYY are NOT falsifiable claims.

Einstein explained the anomalies of Mercury's orbit with Relativity, posited the Gravity Lens Effect and the slowing of clocks at altitude. All as proof of Relativity, and all of which have been accepted, and therefore Relativity, as a Macro-Level Explanation of the Universe is accepted as the operative paradigm.

I was looking in to controversy about the greenhouse effect and gave up. All the sites I found had the discredited and manufactured hockey stick graph as part of the "proof" of the greenhouse effect.

I'm pretty sure the greenhouse effect has been observed and demonstrated. What's not clear, I think, is the interaction between the greenhouse effect and everything else going on in the atmosphere and the Earth as a whole. For whatever reason, when we look at the ice-core data, there's this sharp variation between hot periods (what we've been in for all of human history), and the longer ice-ages. (See this post with plots of the ice core data at the bottom to see what I am talking about). My understanding is that global warming posits an enhanced feedback look, whereby increased CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, triggering further greenhouse effects (e.g. water evaporation, etc.) and there's a devastating cascading cycle. And I don't think we have a full understanding of all the mechanisms that could come into play there. There's a claim that this is exactly what we've seen in the 20th century, i.e. for the foreseeable future, this same effect should continue, but at least with the CRU data set, substantial data integrity issues have been raised, so we don't know whether that's even true or not.

Alpha the Greenhouse Effect would seem to ASSUME that the Carbon Dioxide remains constant in the air, and is not absorbed by plants or the oceans. It further assumes that the current level of Carbon Dioxide is sufficient to generate excess warming...and that this excess warming is not somehow offset by other processes.

So let me ask you Alpha, "Do you believe in LeChatelier's Principle?'And if not, WHY NOT? It's a basic scientific principle or don't you believe in Science? Really stop nattering on about the Greenhouse Effect, you're like one of those insufferable Creationists resting thier argument on the Second Law of Thermo-Dynamics. You really don't have much understanding, and you just want to sound "smart."

Alpha the Greenhouse Effect would seem to ASSUME that the Carbon Dioxide remains constant in the air, and is not absorbed by plants or the oceans. .

Why do you say this? Can you explain?

You really don't have much understanding, and you just want to sound "smart." .

I accept Le Chatelier's Principle, thought I forgot the name. I was just last week explaining to my wife, who never had chemistry, how equilibrium works. A brilliant and fascinating concept.

You think it doesn't matter if people don't grasp the simplest concepts of the global warming debate. OK, your opinion. I think it matters.

And, you left out the billions of tons of CO2 we dig and pump out of the ground and inject into the atmosphere every year. This is CO2 that was taken out of the atmosphere eons ago and is being put back there.

Cap and trade was successful at addressing the acid rain problem (though I am not suggesting that I know it is "solved". I do not know). The difference between acid rain and CO2, in this regard, is that economically viable technologies actually existed to scrub the precursor oxides from smokestack effluent. We do not have a viable technological solution to CO2.

You were clearly wrong when you said "No one denies the greenhouse effect! " right here on this page are conservatives denying the greenhouse effect.

As far as the concentrations looking small, you are contradicting yourself. Set aside global warming. If the concentrations are too small to make any difference, why would there, then, be any greenhouse effect?

Wouldn't the concentrations also be too small for a greenhouse effect?

It's a Junior Year Meteorology Major problem to compute Earth's effective radiating temperature given the Solar input, assuming no atmosphere, and then comparing that to the observed temperature. IIRC, the Earth is about 15 C warmer than it would be if it had no atmosphere. That is the Greenhouse Effect. The surface of the Earth is warmed by two things: The Sun and the Atmosphere.

This concept is frequently confused with AGW attributed to increased concentrations of Greenhouse Gases (principally CO2).

@Alpha - Set aside global warming. If the concentrations are too small to make any difference, why would there, then, be any greenhouse effect?

He meant the concentrations of CO2, dumbass. 95% of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor, less than 5% is the result of CO2. Of the CO2 present in the atmosphere, 80% or so is of natural origin.

In other words: Given the effective temperature of the Sun (about 6000 K), and the surface area of the Sun, compute the outward radiative flux, and compute how much is intercepted by the Terrestrial Disk out at 150,000,000 km. Assume the Earth is neither warming nor cooling. Thus, you know the outward radiative flux from the terrestrial sphere, and you can compute an effective radiating temperature of the Earth, and compare it to observations. The presence of an atmosphere accounts for the difference.

My understanding is that global warming posits an enhanced feedback look, whereby increased CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, triggering further greenhouse effects (e.g. water evaporation, etc.) and there's a devastating cascading cycle. And I don't think we have a full understanding of all the mechanisms that could come into play there.

The feedback effects have been posited to be substantial by those backing AGW. But a recent paper I ran into a week or two ago rejected that level (or higher) of feedback at a 95% confidence level. Obviously, a lot more work needs to be done here, but at present there seems to be more evidence of a lower level of feedback than the higher one. What we do know now is that the system is currently too complex to be understood at the level claimed by the proponents of AGW.

Alpha...You have been commenting here long enough to have read dozens of comments denying that a Greenhouse Effect exists outside of a closed system. The Atmosphere is not a closed system because it continually absorbs the CO2 and the H20 that get into it. The trace amount of CO2 is irrelevant if quadrupled. The clouds formed from the H20 are the variable, and that has only been linked to the frequency of Sunspot/Solar storms. The BIG LIE method has been thrown around to mind control people to accept that C02 is a CARBON POLLUTANT. That is so false that it boggles the mind that a sane person would still croak out the tired mantra of a triple disgraced lie. BTW why is it so cold the last two winters? And why did Dr Jones admit that there has been no warming for the past 15 years? If you answer those two questions truthfully, then you will have proven yourself that the Greenhouse Gases Theory of the atmosphere is a fairy tale.

Maguro is too precious: He meant the concentrations of CO2, dumbass. 95% of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor, less than 5% is the result of CO2. Of the CO2 present in the atmosphere, 80% or so is of natural origin. .

False. Not 95%.

So now you guys are saying CO2 has no impact on the greenhouse effect?

A number of instances of leftover Iraqi chemical WMDs were found after the 2003 invasion. Moreover, Iraq under Saddam had a vigorous biological warfare program that was entirely hidden from outside view until the defection of one of Saddam's in-laws during the mid-90's.

Beyond that, however, Iraq had been within months of completing its nuclear bomb at the time of its Gulf War defeat in 1991, and thus already had complete plans for a (Fat Man-type implosive) nuclear weapon, needing only concentrated fissionable U-235 to finish it.

Afterwards hobbled with inspectors and sanctions, Saddam directed that his chief nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi bury all the plans and critical components for Iraq's uranium-concentrating centrifuges in his backyard, which Obeidi did, afterwards detailing it all in his book The Bomb in My Garden, written after Saddam's 2003 overthrow.

Thus, but for his second defeat by the U.S. Hussein was fully prepared to immediately restart his nuclear bomb program just as soon as he had freed himself of sanctions and inspectors (which had already started to happen before the buildup and invasion that GWB instigated).

Christopher Hitchens wrote about it here; I've also read Obeidi's book, and the idea that Saddam was “no threat to the U.S.” is pure leftist fantasy and misdirection.

Because you sad goof-ball IF the Carbon Dioxide is absorbed by Plants or the Oceans, it's no longer a GREENHOUSE GAS, causing Global Warming, that's why? Geeeeeez, is that too complex for you, Mr. Smart-Guy?

I don't mean to be demeaning, I find that disgusting, but here you are prating on and on about one single effect, and how if we can't grasp it or if we accept it we're stoopit or hypocrites, when it's obvious that the system and system of systems that make up GLOBAL Climate or Weather are FAR more complex than the "Greenhouse Effect" or any single Law or Effect.

Simply throwing out "The Greenhouse Effect" is no different than throwing out the Second Law of Thermodynamics as evidence of the impossibility of Evolution.

And again, since we're talking about "science" here and you LIKE "science" show me the falsifiable claims AGW makes that if proven tend to verify the truth of AGW and which, IF disproven would tend to discredit it as an operative theory. We're busy searching Higgs Bosons and the like, because their existence is "proof" of various quantum-mechanical theories. Should we fail to discover them it would tend to suggest that the various theories are incorrect. Just as the failure of the Michelson-Morley Experiment caused Newtonian Physics to become discredited.

I thought that disproved the existence of aether. which was a fundamental tenet of Newtonian Physics. The aether was the medium thru which light and gravity moved...no aether, it called into question some base assumptions of Newton.

The main thing that annoys me when reading anything from a philosopher is the first third or so of any given work is devoted to defining terms. I can see why that's necessary, partly because those are the terms that will be used to refute the position by philosophers that follow, and terms change, and they mean different things to different people, and they eventually become translated variously.

But no. I do not accept the new term global weirding. Sorry. Rather, the attempt is amusingly feeble and it's evidence to me acknowledgement the endeavor to construct overarching international institutions for the purpose of redistributing wealth from developed nations to underdeveloped nations and by so doing to concentrate power that supersedes governments and without providing representation of the governed, has failed. Now piss off. You don't get to redefine your terms within the discussion. Again.

Joe: Because you sad goof-ball IF the Carbon Dioxide is absorbed by Plants or the Oceans, it's no longer a GREENHOUSE GAS, causing Global Warming, that's why? Geeeeeez, is that too complex for you, Mr. Smart-Guy? .

This is such an idiotic line. Plants take up CO2 yet THERE IS STILL CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE!!

If the plants took it all up why is it still there and still increasing?

Or do you deny the scientific measurements showing that the concentrations of CO2 are increasing?

Simply throwing out "The Greenhouse Effect" is no different than throwing out the Second Law of Thermodynamics as evidence of the impossibility of Evolution. .

I explained the reason for bringing this up. It is elementary to the discussion. People who deny the greenhouse effect exists should not be denouncing global warming.

Obviously, you can't mount a response to that so you go with this pathetic line instead,.

"Rational conversation on global warming" = everyone agrees global warming 1) is happening, 2) is anthropogenic, and 3) requires massive governmental intervention and the associated curtailment of personal freedoms. And anyone who disagrees must be either A) a Creationist hillbilly, B) a tool of the "Fossil Fuel Lobby", or C) a retard (remember, it's okay for "liberals" to use the term when referring to "conservatives").

AlphaLiberal said... "Ann Althouse, when will you just lay out your objections to the science of global warming?"

I'm not a scientist, but I believe in and care deeply about science. Unfortunately, I am forced to trust the human beings who call themselves scientists, and I don't trust them when there is evidence of untrustworthiness. They behave politically. I mistrust them the way I mistrust judges who claim to be deciding cases according to neutral principles of law. They care about the outcomes, and it skews what they do. They can even be completely dishonest.

Alpha the Greenhouse Effect would seem to ASSUME that the Carbon Dioxide remains constant in the air, and is not absorbed by plants or the oceans. It further assumes that the current level of Carbon Dioxide is sufficient to generate excess warming...and that this excess warming is not somehow offset by other processes.

That really is part of the feedback. Plants love CO2. At least in the ranges that we are experiencing right now, and for the foreseeable future, the more CO2 they get, the better they grow. And, of course, they suck it out of the atmosphere, and turn it into that nasty gas: O2.

But of course, more plant growth translates into a change in the Earth's albedo, which affects how much of the Sun's radiation is reflected back into space.

But getting back to the increase in CO2 causing plant growth - this would seem, on its own, to be a reason for more CO2, and not less, in our atmosphere. After all, all of the energy that we, as humans, consume to keep us going, comes from plants, directly or indirectly (though the food chain). Thus, more CO2 would seem almost inevitably result in less starvation. (So, does that mean that AGW proponents are in favor of starvation?)

Compounding this, of course, is that the more warming that we would actually have, the more tundra will ultimately be turned into farmland, and the shape of the continents would strongly suggest that for every acre potentially lost by being too hot, several would be added from the unfreezing of the tundra in Alaska, Canada, and, especially, Russia/Siberia. (Besides, as others have pointed out, GW is likely to affect the more northern and southern climes than the equatorial areas).

What was the overriding factor about invading Iraq that made it worth putting us $3 trillion in debt, AS the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq took less than .7% of US GDP I don’t believe they put us “Three Trillion in debt.” Thanx for trying though

while we did fuckall regarding North Korea? SO the Six Party Multilateral Talks were F*ck-All Good to know that Diplomacy ought to have been replaced by Cowboy Unilateral Action.

What was the overriding factor about invading Iraq that made it worth putting us $3 trillion in debt, while we did fuckall regarding North Korea?

11,000 pieces of North Korean artillery, sitting on the border, and Seoul, a city of 20 million people, well within range of the North Korean guns. If we could do something about North Korea, other than get repeatedly scammed by fake diplomatic overtures, that would be great. But I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to get around that whole standing threat to turn Seoul into a sea of flame. That is, incidentally, literally, exactly the phrase the North Korean spokesmen use -- bulbada. Fire-sea.

As I understand it, the science is mainly based on knowing 2 things: 1. the amount of CO2 being emitted and 2. the greenhouse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. I assume those 2 things are real, but I don't know about the calculations or the various other factors that are involved.

There is hardly anything more pathetic or disheartening than to read the comments of non-scientists on the topic of global warming/climate change/greenhouse effect. Politics intrude, logic collapses, strident voices echo. When Thomas Friedman weighs in with his insane ideas we know that we are lost completely. If I had an opinion on the topic I would change it automatically to the opposite of his. The biggest threat to the environment is the-sky-is-falling urgency of the non-scientific (read political) community. People who would otherwise do the right thing are extremely skeptical of this approach, as they were and are on the matter of health care reform. Thus the weather is used as a proxy for the climate by both sides, as necessary and as convenient. I think we need to outfit the Congress with alternative energy sources. Only alternative energy sources. Then, in short order, we shall learn the truth of the urgency.

When Tom Friedman has to use the term "global weirding" to describe what was known as global warming, things are not going as predicted.

And you expect us to pay trillions for this crap when we can't even come close to balancing the budget now? I believe there is a man made component to CO2 levels, but sorry, I am not buying this nonsense that it is the end of the world. Go sell this crazy to someone else.

If the plants took it all up Straw man I never said Took it ALL up, only that it is taken up by plants and that more Carbon Dioxide, means more for plant uptake…

why is it still there because it is CONTINUALLY being generated, just like Oxygen and still increasing? It’s NOT Goof-Ball….there is NO evidence that the amount of Carbon Dioxide is INCREASING in the planet’s atmosphere. I may be a scientific illiterate, in your view, but I just read a article last week, IIRC, that states the percentage of Carbon Dioxide is UNCHANGED over the last century…

I do find the "global weirding" meme to be interesting. If the temperature goes up, AGW(eirding) wins. If it goes down, ditto. They can't lose. And while we can argue about the selection of trees used to supposedly disprove the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age, it will be far harder to prove that the climate today is more uncertain than it was in the past.

Of course, a recent drop in the annual number of hurricanes doesn't help Friedman's theory.

We are so dependent on the expertise and honesty of scientists here. We are asked to make extreme sacrifices based on what they are telling us. The depth of their ethical responsibility is incomprehensibly great. And yet they lose (or "lose") the raw data and they try to block publications of their critics. To see this behavior in people who we need to trust is absolutely sickening. To be asked to keep believing anyway... it's too much.

The CO2 record from Hawaii does show the effect of plants. The sawtooth rise has an annual drop as plants grow in Spring/Summer (removing CO2 from the atmosphere), and a rise as plants die or go dormant in Fall/Winter (decaying plants release CO2 back into the atmosphere).

Did you download Stiglitz's book to your Kindle? Let's see your Nobel Prize in Economics.

I don't have a Kndle...has Stiglitz been quoted on the floor of the US Senate, like Glenn Greenwald?

But please summarize how spending less than 1% of US GDP on the TWO WARS, yielded that amount of debt. Note I am not edisputing the amount of debt, just the contribution of Iraq or even Iraq AND Afghanistan to it.

Now if you want to talk the GWoT, NCLB, Medicare Schedule D, and a number of other programs over the last 8 years, then I'm more willing to listen....

BTW, do YOU hve a PhD much less a Nobel Prize in Economics? I mean how can you understand Stiglitz if you don't? mayhpa he was lying to you or just having you as a bit of fun?

It’s NOT Goof-Ball….there is NO evidence that the amount of Carbon Dioxide is INCREASING in the planet’s atmosphere.

That's a bit strong. There's evidence that CO2 levels today are much higher than they were in the past. Ice cores! I don't know exactly how they back out the atmospheric CO2 concentration from the ice cores, but apparently they can, and it is uncontroversial. And they show that while concentrations of CO2 were generally below 300ppm for most of the past few hundred millenia, they're well above 300ppm today.

As I understand it, the science is mainly based on knowing 2 things: 1. the amount of CO2 being emitted and 2. the greenhouse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. I assume those 2 things are real, but I don't know about the calculations or the various other factors that are involved.

Welcome to the club, Ann. No one does. A lot of people pretend like they do, but invariably they have grossly simplified a system that none of us understand all that well yet.

And, yes, there are plenty of people who understand more of it than most of us here do. But that doesn't mean that they understand it well enough to accurately predict what is going to happen, but rather, that they just know more than we do.

I should note that these simplifications are part of what is being argued about right now (above and beyond the scientific fraud). One simplification that is much in debate is the level of feedback in the system. The models that the IPCC, et al. used assume a very aggressive level of feedback, without much in the way of support. As noted above, more recent works seems to discount that.

Good one, Alpha, LOL. You're really kind of dumb, aren't you? Animals and plants have been emitting and absorbing CO2 for billions of years without either reducing CO2 levels to zero or causing runaway global warming.

And a good thing too, because if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

It seems no one is addressing the only truly important question raised:

Why are presumably serious people reading and discussing anything from the New York Times?

Aside to AlphaLiberal: Yes, the greenhouse question is settled, just not in the direction you think. Seems there is no layer of glass or plastic above us to create an actual greenhouse. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/ pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf

As I understand it, the science is mainly based on knowing 2 things: 1. the amount of CO2 being emitted and 2. the greenhouse effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Nah, those are the easy parts, where the science really is settled. The scary scenarios are based not on the unaided CO2 influence-- which James Hansen, Richard Lindzen, and everyone in between agrees is modest-- but on poorly understood but (supposedly) positive feedback mechanisms due mainly to water vapor.

We are so dependent on the expertise and honesty of scientists here. We are asked to make extreme sacrifices based on what they are telling us. The depth of their ethical responsibility is incomprehensibly great. And yet they lose (or "lose") the raw data and they try to block publications of their critics. To see this behavior in people who we need to trust is absolutely sickening.

Yes, I feel betrayed by what I have been learning in the last couple of months. I would, however, like to point out that your label of "scientists" is too broad. There are a LOT of scientists who have not contributed to this scandal. One could even argue that they are wounded even more than the public at large. I would further point out that there is another group who bears a lot of blame. Journalists, who through either their ignorance or their agenda-pushing, or both, have contributed to the discredited "settled science" meme.